kadmium

When something big happens nowadays, there are so many people gathering information about it that surprising details rise to the surface that I probably wouldn’t have ever learned about.

When the WTC was destroyed, I learned that the engineers had planned for the contingency that an airplane might fly into it, but they only planned for a 727, I guess because it was the biggest commercial airliner flying when they were designing the building.

Today I learned just how fast shuttles are moving on re-entry. The actual number indicating their speed (Mach 18 or 12,500 mph) is not what surprised me. It was the combination of details that allowed me to visualize the approach.

The shuttle was over north-central Texas when it fell apart, headed for a landing in Florida. It was at 200,000 feet. The accident occurred just before 9:00 AM Eastern time. The landing was scheduled for 9:16 AM Eastern time.

So they were going to decelerate from 18 times the speed of sound, drop just under 38 miles in altitude, and cover roughly 1100 land miles in 16 minutes. That’s just amazing. I think the most amazing thing to me is that the space program runs so well that this doesn’t happen more often.

Very true!!! For an experimental program, the space program has had relatively few accidents. They will learn much more from this I am sure. What struck me was that most of the folk on board were around the ages of you and your siblings and spouses. You all are in the leadership position in the world now. Awesome!!! Would one of you like to take over the presidency?

Comment posted by Ruth | February 1, 2003 04:40 PM